ANDY: Think you'll ever get out of here?
RED: Sure. When I got a long white beard and about three marbles left rolling around upstairs.
ANDY: Tell you where I'd go. Zihuatanejo.
RED: Zihuatanejo?
ANDY: Mexico. Little place right on the Pacific. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory. That's where I'd like to finish out my life, Red. A warm place with no memory. Open a little hotel right on the beach. Buy some worthless old boat and fix it up like new. Take my guests out charter fishing.
ANDY: You know, a place like that, I'd need a man who can get things.
RED: Jesus, Andy. I couldn't hack it on the outside. Been in here too long. I'm an institutional man now. Like old Brooks Hatlen was.
ANDY: You underestimate yourself.
RED: Bullshit. In here I'm the guy who can get it for you. Out there, all you need are Yellow Pages. I wouldn't know where to begin. Pacific Ocean? Hell. Like to scare me to death, somethin' that big.
ANDY: Not me. I didn't shoot my wife and I didn't shoot her lover, and whatever mistakes I made I've paid for and then some. That hotel and that boat... I don't think it's too much to want. To look at the stars just after sunset. Touch the sand. Wade in the water. Feel free.
RED: Goddamn it, Andy, stop! Don't do that to yourself! Talking shitty pipedreams! Mexico's down there, and you're in here, and that's the way it is!
ANDY: You're right. It's down there, and I'm in here. I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.
***
Shawshank Redemption is one of my favorite movies. I own it on VHS and I still don’t have the heart to get rid of it even though I don’t actually own a VHS player. I have seen it a thousand times but still leave it on when I come across it on TV.
Ironically it is one of Erik’s favorite movies as well. On top of saying, “This doesn’t suck” when we are enjoying some facet of our day, he also breaks out the “Get busy living” quote to signify our adventure. It was then only appropriate that while cruising down the Mexican highway we had to stop in Zihuatanejo.
Although I wasn't incarcerated and did't have to deal with the sisters to earn Zihuatanejo; I did earn it.
The Mexican adventure came at us fast and furious the first few days.
The first night we encountered a rattle snake while camping out in the Mexican desert. Not significant to some, but snakes are one of the things I am terrified of and it was an eerie welcoming to the trip.
There was no coffee required the following morning when a Mexican military helicopter thought we looked suspicious and decided to hover over us for a little bit then tail us down the highway. At one point I looked over and could see a bunch of guys with automatic weapons looking at me. My thinking was at any moment we would have the ground patrol join the air patrol and start questioning us on what we were doing in the desert.
That event was followed by a blown tire at 65 mph in an 8,000 lb vehicle. As I was passing a car the van started to shake and the right rear tire blew out. The back end swung around like I hit a patch of ice and I thought that we were about to take a premature exit into the median. You know in the movies when something dramatic is happening and all you can hear is wind? It was exactly like that in slow motion. I have no idea how it happened (because my eyes were closed) but I managed to hold on and ride it out to the shoulder. When the van came to a stop I looked over at Erik and said, “That was intense.” To which he replied, “I’m buying you a margarita tonight.”
After surviving the tire I assumed my heart rate couldn’t get any higher. I was wrong. A couple nights later we were camped out on the side of a field when a spotlight with flashing blue and red lights woke me up. The first thing out of my mouth in English was, “OH F---“, followed by the sound of a couple AK-47s cocking. The first words out of my mouth in Spanish were, “No tengo nada!” or “I don’t have anything.” No idea why I said that, but I figured they wouldn’t mow me down and leave me in the sugar cane field without anything in my hand.
Now I find myself in Zihuatanejo, drinking beer and blogging in a cabana on the beach. Andy Dufresne was right. Zihuatanejo is a warm place on the Pacific. But that is where I veer. For me, it does have a memory. I remember all the events that got me here. Each one of them was significant enough to turn the car around and say this is too much; I want to go home. That feeling is only there for a couple minutes before something else kicks in. The living
.
